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The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) was established by Congress in 1984 as an independent, federally-funded national security institution devoted to the nonviolent prevention and mitigation of deadly conflict abroad.

Constitution Making, Peacebuilding, and National Reconciliation

USIP's advisory work on constitution making is focused on providing options to design and conduct participatory, inclusive, transparent, and nationally owned constitution making processes that enjoy legitimacy and promote national dialogue, reconciliation, and a consensual political community.

Current Activities

Constitutionmaking.org
Launched in 2009, this web-based resource provides essential input for practitioners involved in constitution making processes. The tools and intellectual resources if offers include a digital library of constitutions, comparative analysis of a variety of issues, and a blog dedicated to reporting and reflecting on constitutional developments worldwide. | Visit the site

Public Participation in Constitution Making
In countries coming out of conflict, the perceived legitimacy of a constitution, and how it was created, may be as essential to success as the outcome of any particular substantive issue. Therefore, public consultation accompanied by robust public information campaigns is a fundamental element of constitutional processes. In 2009, USIP partnered with International Interpeace and International IDEA to host a conference on these issues.

Rethinking Federalism and Power Sharing in Post-Conflict Divided Societies
Federalism has become a popular answer to the question of how to reconstruct post-conflict states, particularly those divided along ethnic, religious, or linguistic lines. Unfortunately, most federal models have been developed in and for advanced western democracies, making their application to non-western developing countries difficult. In addition, federalism and power sharing have too often been viewed in competition with each other, with little regard for possible synergies. USIP is partnering with the Forum of Federations to reexamine current thinking on institutional design in order to maximize the positive impact these processes and institutions can play in conflict resolution and post-conflict state building.

Country-Specific Engagements
The Constitution Making Project engages directly in ongoing constitution making processes, providing support and advice on issues of substance, process, and implementation. In the past, we have worked with government, international, and NGO/civil society organizations in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq, and DRC, among others. We currently work in Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan. | Read more about our ongoing projects.

Related Event

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon created the High-level Independent Panel on U.N. Peace Operations on October 31, 2014, to undertake a comprehensive review of peace operations. Join the U.S. Institute of Peace on March 10 for a discussion with a delegation from the U.N. panel co-hosted with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs and the Better World Campaign.

Since the 2011 Arab Spring crisis, Yemen has faced ongoing serious security sector challenges. Part of this reform effort is the country’s prison system, which this report—drawing on visits to thirty-seven facilities in six governorates—documents from a systems perspective. A more in-depth assessment of detention facilities and their role within larger rule of law challenges would be highly beneficial. Opportunities for prison reform are emerging, many well within reach.

The Pakistani Taliban’s killing of more than 150 people at the Army Public School in Peshawar in December spurred the Pakistani government to draft a new National Action Plan against terrorism. A primary architect of that plan, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, discussed his country’s terrorism challenge on Feb. 18 in his first public appearance in Washington since taking office in 2013.

In the wake of the Arab Spring, citizens across the Middle East and North Africa are demanding reforms from their governments. How these governments respond to their people and promote inclusive constitution-making processes may determine whether their new social compacts lead to a durable peace. This report draws from the work of scholars and constitution makers who have been exchanging ideas about how to ensure that modern constitutions incorporate the needs and aspirations of the citizens they are intended to govern. As the countries of the Arab Spring transition from authoritarian regimes and overcome ethnic and sectarian divisions, they can learn lessons from comparative constitution-making experiences—including most recently that of Tunisia—about how to achieve more consensus based social compacts and lasting peace.

This report discusses the Justice and Security Dialogue (JSD) processes and activities which took place in the governorates of Abyan and Marib from early 2013 through early 2014. It details the research, planning, and implementation of context-drive dialogues, including outcomes, conclusions, and lessons learned.